Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Eight - Hold Up

I held my light ball higher over my head once the first of my friends had squeezed through the entrance. It was Calamity, who - appropriately - had the flexibility of a cat. He had managed to twist himself through the entrance tunnel with his bow and quiver and all.

"I'll get started on the entrance," he said. "We'll want it wider if we need to make an escape. Watch my back?"

"Sure thing," I said as I turned to stare deeper into the cave. Or was it the mine?

I wasn't exactly sure where one definition ended and the other began, really. The walls were mostly sheer rock, but it was also clear in some spots that they'd been carved out and smoothed. The entrance went on for a couple of metres, then spilled into a larger room. The ceiling rose a bit higher and there were several tracks on the ground. Wooden rails for a minecart? I couldn't see too far in, since the entrance curved off to the side.

Calamity grunted as he tugged a large rock out of the way, then rolled it over to the side. "I'm not going to gamble on this place being the most stable thing out there," he said as he looked at the rest of the entrance and all the stones blocking it.

"We should probably have stayed outside and pulled all the rocks out one at a time," I said.

"That would take forever," he said.

"Yeah, I guess. It'd be safer though." I wasn't someone who was very claustrophobic--after all, being squished smaller was an important part of getting a good hug--but I was still keenly aware of the tons of rock just above my head. The tips of my ears kept brushing against the low ceiling whenever I moved my head, displacing some dust and ancient cobwebs.

"Safe is the enemy of fast," Calamity said, which probably wasn't a very OSHA-compliant sentiment.

He moved a couple more rocks out of the way, mostly picking away at the smaller ones that were loose and just in the path. Then Awen was shimmying into the cave to join us. "I'm putting up bracing," she declared once she was inside.

"Won't that get in the way?" Calamity asked.

Awen's cheeks puffed and she pursed her lips. "The entrance caving in would also get in the way," she said. Then she started creating long, thick beams of glass. They were hexagonal columns that she pressed up against the walls, then joined together with some pretty complicated braces that she welded together with new glass.

"Is that going to be strong enough?" I asked.

"Glass is very strong," Awen said. "It just has a few problems with ductility."

"What's that?" I asked. It felt like a word I'd heard in class but immediately forgot about.

Awen paused, then explained. "Glass is harder to compress than steel. In that sense, it's very strong. But when you try to bend glass, it fails catastrophically. Steel would bend a little and might spring back into shape. But for something like this, where we just need supports? Glass is perfectly fine as long as none of the weight comes in from the sides."

Awen created a few more arches of glass against the walls near the entrance with large flat top bits and wide feet. Being able to grow them with her magic meant that placing them was relatively easy.

With some reinforcement in place, we got to work pulling out more of the stones in the path until it was opened wide enough that actual sunlight was coming into the mine, unfiltered by the slight twists and turns in the entrance.

Amaryllis came in next, followed by Desiree, and finally Laine and Sir Aberrforth in the rear. "Quite the homey space," the explorer said as he looked about.

"It's not exactly cozy," I said. The air was too cool and humid for that, though it certainly was kind of tight.

The others took some turns summoning lights, and soon we had half a dozen glowing magical globes of various hues and strengths lighting up the entrance.

I stepped up and deeper into the mine, past the initial corridor and into that first large room. It was more obviously a mine here. There were ancient rotting supports against the walls, mushrooms and moss growing on the timber, and there were several tracks and spaces for the minecarts to turn around in. One side had half a dozen minecarts pressed up against a wall that seemed to have caved in a little.

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"Ah, there!" Sir Aberrforth said as he gestured ahead.

There were a few carts turned on their sides to one edge of the room. An old bench had been dragged over and was set next to a large tin bucket filled with bits of darkened wood. A stack of sticks sat nearby, with some bigger logs next to it.

"Looks like a camp," I said.

Sir Aberrforth picked up a leather bag. It looked much newer than all of the other things in here. "I think I recognize this bag," he said. "This is from one of my companions."

"So, that confirms that they were in here," Amaryllis said. "And they had a fire and a camp set up. There's a bedroll there, in that cart."

I glanced over, and she was right. Someone clever had set up a small bedroll inside of a cart turned onto its side. I supposed setting up tents when the ground was all rock wasn't an option.

"Igniting a fire in these confines seems unwise," Desiree said. She raised a little ball of light closer to the ceiling, revealing some soot along the roof.

"It doesn't smell too strongly of smoke," I said.

Calamity sniffed at the air, then removed his hat and held it up in a few strange angles a bit above head-height. "There's a draft," he said. "Cooler air coming from that tunnel over there. Might have been enough to make it safe as long as they kept the fire real small."

"My companions aren't fools," Sir Aberrforth said. "At least one of them has a spell that turns fire smoke into breathable air. It's a common enough trick for those who spend time in caves. Sometimes you'll find a bend in a cave where the air is stale and you need to purify it."

I wondered if Cleaning-magic could help with that? Did carbon dioxide count as dirty? Smoke probably did, since it was all icky and sticky and bad for your lungs.

"So, if your friends camped here... then where are they now?" I asked. There were three bedrolls on the ground, and only one bag left behind. "They left some of their stuff."

"No one who has time to pack before leaving would forget all three of their bedrolls," Amaryllis said.

I nodded along, that made some sense. "So, they chopped up some wood and brought it here, probably pretty recently." I said. I brought a hand closer to the little firepit and felt some warmth coming off of the ashes still. "Feels like they can't have gone too far, right?"

"Unless something drove them deeper into the mine," Amaryllis added with a grim expression.

I glanced at the dark tunnel stretching further into the mine, wondering what could have made Sir Aberrforth's companions leave their camp in such a hurry. Turning towards Laine, I found the woman staring into the dark as well.

"Let's get out of here," she said. "We can collapse the entrance once more. I have a few magics that can create a seal."

"You want to abandon them?" I asked, taken aback by the suggestion.

"It's the safer option," she replied, her tone steady but sombre. "If something dangerous is lurking deeper in, we risk all our lives by venturing further unprepared. Sometimes, retreating and burying a great evil is better than trying to fight it."

I really didn't like that option, and a look to all of my friends suggested that they didn't like it either.

Calamity started towards the tunnel while checking the tension on his bow. "I'm not about to be cowed by some creepy dark tunnel," he said. "And I haven't met a monster yet that could handle an arrow to the face."

"Dragons?" I asked.

"If a monster can shrug off an arrow to the face, I maintain that they are a person worthy of respect--so I will not anger them by hitting their face with arrows," he said.

I nodded. That was sensible.

I began to follow Calamity into the darkness. Even if we ran into monsters (or people who could survive getting shot in the face with arrows), we had a job to do. Specifically, we had a quest to explore these tunnels, to say nothing of the people in need of rescue.

"Give me a moment," Amaryllis said. "If we're doing this, I want to start a proper map first."

I grinned. That was more like it. Laine didn't seem happy with our gung-ho-ness, but I was afraid she'd just have to live with it.

***